washington post election, i don't think that either party has a real mandate per se overall you would think the overall mandate would be to save this country. neil, you've been on top of this. i have a feeling we'll go into that january 1st with no deal d maybe the markets crashing, maybe people in the street before they cobble together something akin to kicking it down the road again. they gave themselves a ticking time bomb and now they look like inspector clouseau trying to take it apart. >> neil: ben stein? >> other than raing taxes, it doesn't terrify me to see the taxes going up on the screen, what terrifies me cutting defense. i'd much rather see the taxes go up than cutting defense. and president obama gave a speech, my way or the highway. >> he said exactly the opposite, i mean, i'm listening to the two of you, i've never been more hopeful about this problem getting resolved. john boehner made conciliatory comments last week and the president made conciliatory-- >> i think ben was saying on the tax issues raising on the rich, debate how much he's going to raise that. he said